


Bonding Over Fluffy White Wonder Bread

by verucasalt123



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comfort Food, Developing Friendships, Domesticity in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Gen, How Is There No Tag For The Biggerson's Turducken Special?, Jack Has Issues, POV Dean Winchester, Sandwiches, Supernatural Summergen Fic Exchange 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 07:30:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20671598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verucasalt123/pseuds/verucasalt123
Summary: Dean decides he’ll wait for another day to tell Jack about the sandwich he wished for in the Chinese restaurant all those years ago. Or the time a turducken special from Biggerson’s tried to kill him.





	Bonding Over Fluffy White Wonder Bread

**Author's Note:**

  * For [altschmerzes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/altschmerzes/gifts).

> For this year's Summergen - prompt _Dean takes the time to teach Jack something small and simple and human_.

A morning in the garage spending quality time with Baby always starts Dean’s day very nicely. He doesn’t like to think he gets behind on her maintenance, it’s just that as time goes by, she needs some kind of tinkering or adjusting or calibrating almost constantly. Sam knows enough that he’s able to give him a hand with the bigger jobs, but Dean can admit he likes being the only one who can _really_ give her the care she needs. 

Dean’s world is, and always has been, constantly changing. It’s the nature of the job. People come and go, sometimes temporarily and sometimes permanently, even the ones he thinks he can’t live without. Or live _with_, in some cases. Baby is his permanent companion, and her presence is comforting. Sam likes to make jokes and smart-ass comments but Dean knows he understands. 

Making his way back into the bunker, it suddenly becomes obvious that he really needs to eat something. Dean hates admitting it but at his age, a jelly donut is a poor choice for breakfast. Hours later, he’s feeling like he’d have been better off skipping it altogether. He takes a multivitamin on the sly every day but he knows his diet needs improvement. It’s just hard to do it in a way that Sam won’t make some kind of comment about it, and yes he’s aware that continuing to eat shitty food to avoid some kind of smug smile on his brother’s face is exceptionally immature.

There’s a certain strange satisfaction in knowing he’s gotten as far as _at my age_ in the first place. It’s definitely not something he would have imagined ten years ago. Or fifteen years ago. Or twenty years ago, for that matter.

It’s exceptionally quiet in the bunker today. Cas is gone on a trip to who knows where, expected to return who knows when, and Sam took off first thing this morning for a weekend market in Lincoln. Dean thinks maybe Sam had taken Jack shopping with him until he gets closer to the kitchen and hears activity. He’s pretty sure that’s the sound of Jack rummaging around for something to eat.

The instinctive feeling of annoyance Dean feels at finding that he’s been left alone with Jack fizzles out almost immediately. He’s really warmed up to the kid, and it’s not like he needs to be supervised, as evidenced by the fact that Dean hadn’t even realized Jack was here until just now.

Entering the kitchen, Dean finds Jack just about to sit down at the table with a glass of milk and a plate full of beef jerky. 

“That’s your lunch?”, he asks, opening the fridge and surveying its contents. They’re pretty well stocked up right now. 

“Yeah I guess. Lunch, breakfast, whatever”, Jack replies, and oh. Oh. He’s sulking. 

Dean closes the fridge and walks over to the table. “Problem? There’s plenty of other food if you don’t want to eat road snacks for lunch.” 

Jack doesn’t really have to eat all that often, is the thing. But he likes to eat. Dean sits down with him so he can get a closer look. He genuinely wants to understand what’s happening here. 

“What’s going on, kid? Wake up in a bad mood?”

“No”, Jack answers, keeping his head down and taking a bite of his jerky. Smells like chili-lime. 

“You know, we have a ton of food. If you don’t want this-”

Jack finally looks up and Dean is transported back in time twenty years, seeing that exact same expression on Sam’s teenaged face. He’s seen it on Claire a time or two, now that he thinks about it. 

“I can’t cook, Dean”, he grits out, eyes narrowed. “I’m not supposed to use the oven. Or the stove.”

And that’s completely true. Dean remembers saying it himself, and Sam even backing him up. He doesn’t think it’s unreasonable. “Well, there’s some leftovers in the fridge, you could-”

Jack interrupts him again, his tone even colder. “I’m not supposed to use the microwave either.”

Oh yeah. Dean remembers that too, but he thinks he just said it because Jack was aggravating him about - something, anything. But this reaction right now - either the kid is hitting a naturally bitchy phase, or Dean needs to kick Sam’s ass for putting _My So-Called Life_ on Jack’s TV recommendation list. 

Dean wants to find a compromise here, and he’s thinking about it when Jack pipes up again. “Why do you always call me _kid_ anyway?”, accompanied by a pitch-perfect eyeroll that he could have learned from Sam (or Cas, or Angela Chase).

“Hey, I’ve got nicknames for everyone, all right?”, Dean replies, suddenly feeling defensive. 

He knows he can’t fix all of this right now. Jack’s bitchy attitude, or the fact that he treated him like garbage and literally threatened to kill him back in the early days, or the reality that he’d probably be dangerous using the stove. 

But there’s a temporary alternative, at least for that last thing. 

“All right, Jack. So you can’t cook. We’ll deal with that at some point. But for right now - I think it’s time for me to teach you how to make the best lunch in existence. No stove or oven or microwave required. At the beginner level, anyway.”

Dean stands up, grabs two loaves of bread from the counter, and holds them up for Jack to see. 

“Sandwiches, dude. The possibilities are endless. You’re limited only by what ingredients we have on hand and your own imagination.”

The look on Jack’s face is melting just a bit, his natural curiosity taking over, but he’s still not talking. 

“Come on, kid, come over here. Humor an old guy, will you?”

Slowly, Jack makes his way over to the counter by the fridge. He still looks a bit suspicious, and a bit pouty, but he’s cooperating for now. 

“Sandwiches have been an important part of my life, and Sam’s, forever. When you grow up like we did, without-”, Dean hesitates. Does he really want to give the kid too much information? He’d become like family, though. No point in sugar-coating everything. “Well, let’s just say our food supply wasn’t always regular, and definitely wasn’t very diverse. But sandwiches are easy, and can be really cheap, so the two of us ate lots and lots of them when we were kids.”

“So...just anything between two pieces of bread?”, Jack asks. He seems intrigued “Whatever you want?”

“I mean...depending on what you like. And what you have. And how picky you are.”

Dean smiles as a few memories flash through his mind. Making turkey and cheese after turkey and cheese for a newly re-souled and very hungry Sam. The faded djinn-dream of his mom’s roast beef and lettuce and tomato on white bread. How many dozens of ham sandwiches they’d gone through standing around Bobby’s house trying to work out plans and clues and strategies.

“Castiel ever tell you that he was human for a little while?”

“He mentioned it, but it didn’t seem like he really wanted to talk about it a whole lot.”

Dean nods. It makes sense. “Wasn’t exactly a high point for him. But when he was human, he had to eat like the rest of us. And one of his very favorite things was a sandwich. Peanut butter and grape jelly on fluffy white Wonder bread”, he finishes with a bit of a smile. 

He can’t help but think just for a second about how much Kevin loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. About how he had just made one when - but this is supposed to be something good he’s sharing with Jack. He needs to focus.

Jack makes a face. “That sounds disgusting”, he says, and Dean imagines maybe it wouldn’t sound like a great combination to someone who’d never had it before. 

“One of the most popular sandwiches, if you can believe it. Sam always loved it as a kid. Peanut butter with banana slices, too, which I just could never get behind. But those are really simple ones.”

Dean opens the fridge again and starts pulling out various ingredients. Plastic deli counter packages of ham and turkey. Two different kinds of cheese. A tomato, some lettuce, what’s left of the raw spinach Sam uses for his salads. A ziploc bag of leftover cooked bacon. Mayo. Mustard. He eyes the ketchup but decides to leave it. No point in giving the kid ridiculous ideas when he’s just trying to teach him the basics. They have regular white bread, and multigrain wheat bread. 

“All this stuff, Jack. So many options. Now - why don’t you point out what looks good to you, and we’ll put it together? Sound like a plan?”

Jack’s definitely interested now, no sign of his earlier annoyance. “What about you? What do you like?”

“I’ll make mine after we make yours. This isn’t about me. Just check out what we’ve got, and you can try out whatever you want, okay?”

“Well, I like the brown bread”, Jack starts. After that it’s pretty easy. Turkey, cheddar, bacon, “I really like tomatoes, too”, he says, maybe unsure about how to make it sandwich-friendly. 

“Slicing tomatoes without squishing them takes a little practice. Let me do it for you, and then you can try it yourself next time. Deal?”

“Deal, yeah”, Jack says, now with an actual smile on his face as Dean explains that you need a very sharp knife and a very gentle hand for this endeavor. 

“That’s it, I think”, Jack says, placing his multigrain bread over his ingredients. He’s gonna pass on mustard and mayo, which is fine. Maybe he’ll work his way up. 

Jack stands there at the counter and watches as Dean piles ham and American cheese and mustard and lettuce and tomato and mayo onto his white bread. 

When the two of them sit back down at the table together, the mood is completely altered. There’s a camaraderie, almost. A shared experience. Dean feels pretty damn good about it. 

He waits for Jack to try a bite or two of his sandwich, and there’s a nice feeling of relief when the kid smiles, that big goofy-ass grin Dean hasn’t seen all day. 

“This is great, Dean. And seems pretty safe to make and eat, right?”

Dean decides he’ll wait for another day to tell Jack about the sandwich he wished for in the Chinese restaurant all those years ago. Or the time a turducken special from Biggerson’s tried to kill him. 

“Harmless enough, I think.”

They sit in silence, enjoying their lunch, snagging a piece of chili-lime jerky every now and then since it’s already there on the table. 

Jack really is a part of their family now, all the many, _many_ issues aside. If he’s going to live with them here in the bunker, (and he is) it’s time for him to learn some new things. Human things, since that’s a part of him. More a part than Dean gives him credit for sometimes. 

“How about this - Sammy’s gonna be here for breakfast in the morning. What do you say you and I start out with something basic on the stove. Scrambled eggs, maybe. Sound like a plan?”

There’s that big silly grin again. Dean’s starting to look forward to seeing it. Hell, maybe Jack will be safer in the kitchen than Sam is one of these days.


End file.
